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Meanwhile she required that Pylos should be restored, or at all events that the Messenians and Helots should be withdrawn, as her troops had been from Thrace, and the place garrisoned, if necessary, by the Athenians themselves.
Many of the inhabitants fled into other countries; but those who remained were reduced to the condition of Helots, and were compelled to pay to their masters half of the produce of their lands. For thirty-nine years the Messenians endured this degrading yoke. At the end of this time they took up arms against their oppressors. The SECOND MESSENIAN WAR lasted from B.C. 685 to 668.
Some time after this, the Lacedaemonians sent a second time to desire succor of the Athenians against the Messenians and Helots, who had seized upon Ithome. But when they came, fearing their boldness and gallantry, of all that came to their assistance, they sent them only back, alleging that they were designing innovations.
But rich England has only a few dozen such places in all at command and these are usually allotted with a cynical contempt for merit; miserable anarchic England, soul-starved amid its creature comforts, proving now by way of example to helots that man cannot live by bread alone: England and Oscar Wilde! the "Black Country" and "the professor of æsthetics" a mad world, my masters!
Also, as Thucydides mentions in his History of the Peloponnesian War, those Helots who were especially honoured by the Spartans for their valour were crowned as free men, and taken to the temples with rejoicings; but in a short time they all disappeared, to the number of more than two thousand, and in such a way that no man, either then or afterwards, could tell how they perished.
The Lacedaemonians were also glad to have an excuse for sending some of the Helots out of the country, for fear that the present aspect of affairs and the occupation of Pylos might encourage them to move.
And while Vaudreuil complains that the Canadians are ill-used by Montcalm, Bougainville declares that the regulars are ill-used by Vaudreuil. "One must be blind not to see that we are treated as the Spartans treated the Helots." Then he comments on the jealous reticence of the Governor.
The only question in regard to this second "nation" is: What will become of them in the future? Are they, in their turn, to become helots, after having vainly striven so long to make helots of the others? God forbid! No true Irishman nourishes in his soul such feelings of retaliation or revenge.
The helots approached, wild, disorderly, and tumultuous; they came intent only to plunder and to slay; they expected to find scattered and affrighted foes they found a formidable army; their tyrants were still their lords.
Alexander's losses were principally from men slain in battle; from this, I take it that Alexander knew a deal of sanitary science, and had a knowledge of practical mathematics, in order to systematize that mob of restless, turbulent helots. We hear of Aristotle cautioning him that safety lies in keeping his men busy they must not have too much time to think, otherwise mutiny is to be feared.
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